Ade Edmondson believes panel shows are stunting creativity in comedy.
The 57-year-old comic made his name in the 80s with his alternative stand-up show with Rik Mayall and then as one of the main stars of offbeat and satirical sitcom ‘The Young Ones’ – famous for its political and surreal humour.
Ade thinks there are too many comedy panel series on TV now and these easy to make programmes are stopping more interesting comedic shows from being made.
He told BANG Showbiz: "There’s a point where I watch comedy and I think, ‘Yeah I know that one.’ I know the form, and it takes a lot to surprise me any more. I think it’s been a long time since there’s been a new comedy idea, I think it’s the panel game format. There are some lovely versions of it; I love ‘Have I Got News For You’ and ‘QI’ and stuff like that but it’s all the same level of thinking. It never really gets bizarre.
"The one good comic I’ve seen in the last year is Harry Hill. I went to see Harry live at The Apollo and that was still different and still surprising and funny. But it’s hard because TV executives don’t want to make interesting programmes, they just want to make panel shows which they can churn out."
Ade has done very little comedy since he stopped working with long-term writing and acting partner Rik in the early 200s.
The ‘Celebrity Masterchef’ winner – whose most recent acting role is in crime drama ‘Prey’ – doesn’t think that’s a situation that will change any time soon as he doesn’t have the same appetite for the genre as he used to.
Ade – who has partnered with Merrydown cider to cook up three brand new recipes made from the alcoholic drink (Facebook.com/merrydown.cider) – said: "I’ll be doing very little comedy I think. I’m not averse to little bits of it but I’m not chasing it like I used to because I don’t feel that need, I don’t even watch a lot of comedy any more – it doesn’t excite me in the way it used to."
Ade Edmondson claims panel shows are bad for comedy
